Sankuru

The following terms & conditions apply to customization-modification projects, that is, improvement projects, carried out by Sankuru.biz on behalf of its clients to the source code of existing applications.

Note: This document does not apply to the standard software published by Sankuru.biz. The terms & conditions that apply to standard software published by Sankuru.biz are mentioned in their license. Sankuru.biz publishes its standard software under the terms & conditions of the General Public License (GPL).

1. Cross-browser issues

Sankuru.biz fixes issues and supports, free of extra charge:

• in the following, limitative list of legacy browsers: IE6, IE7, FF3.0+ (closed collection)
• all acid3 browsers; such as: FF3.5+, Chrome, Safari, webkit-based browsers. (limited to the acid3 standard)

You can check the status for your browser here:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid3
• http://acid3.acidtests.org

Note: we do not support or fix issues free of charge for any non-acid3 compliant browser -- be it a legacy or new one -- which is not mentioned in the limitative list of supported legacy browsers. Note that the current versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) are not acid3-compliant. Therefore, supporting and fixing issues in new versions of IE may have a substantial impact on your budget.  Sankuru.biz does not quote fixed-price for solving cross-browser issues in non-supported browsers, but always on time and material basis.

2. Issues causing surcharges and voiding of warranty

2.1. Hosting on Windows

Deployment to a Windows server, is subject to a surcharge of 2 additional days of work, which will be added to the invoice, unless the charge was already mentioned in the work order.

2.2. No SSH access

Deployment to a hosting environment, which has no SSH access, is subject to a surcharge of 3 additional days of work, which will be added to the invoice, unless the charge was already mentioned in the work order.

2.3. No root access when the application requires the installation of additional system software

Note: There is never warranty on work deployed to a Windows server or to a hosting environment without SSH access.

3. Stages in the project

3.1. Quotation stage

Any client interested in commissioning improvements to an existing installation of Joomla with or without virtuemart, may ask Sankuru.biz for a quotation, free of charge at the email address: Cette adresse email est protégée contre les robots des spammeurs, vous devez activer Javascript pour la voir. .

Usually, it will require that Sankuru.biz and the client conduct a dialogue by email, in order to determine the feasibility, impact and implications of the improvements desired by the client.

After the dialogue, Sankuru.biz may be in the position to make an offer and provide the client with a fixed-price quotation for the work. If Sankuru.biz cannot take on the project, Sankuru.biz will motivate why it is not able to make an offer.

The Sankuru.biz quotation, as accepted by the client, is the work order.

3.2. Interpretation of the work order

The work is limited by the description in the work order and never by descriptions in any other document. The description must be understood in a limitative manner, that is, only explicitly mentioned improvements are part of the work order. Any consideration not mentioned in the work order, is not part of it.

• Sankuru.biz will modify the existing software, but not fix its existing bugs.
• Sankuru.biz will not work on additional improvements, desired by the client, which are not mentioned explicitly in the work order.
• Sankuru.biz will produce additional quotations for the work to complete additional improvements.

The client can avoid causing large gaps between what he asks for and what he really needs, by sufficiently communicating to Sankuru.biz the reasons why he wants to commission a particular improvement. It is usually insufficient for the client to communicate what he needs, to avoid such gaps to emerge.

Note: The work order describes what the client wants, and details on how Sankuru.biz will produce the improvements, but not why the client desires such improvements.

The client is solely responsible for the inconvenience or damage caused by gap between the description of the improvements in the work order and his real needs. Sankuru.biz is responsible only for delivering the improvements as described in the work order.

3.3. Development stage

After issuing the work order, Sankuru.biz will develop and deploy the modifications to the staging server appointed by the client.  If the client does not appoint a staging server, Sankuru.biz will provide one. Sankuru.biz generally does not deliver improvements directly to a live server.

The client may commission Sankuru.biz to assist him to deploy the improvements from his staging server to his live server.

3.4. Delivery stage

The client will test the delivery on his staging server and notify issues to Sankuru.biz, who will fix them, as long as the delivery issues fall within a reasonable and limitative interpretation of the scope of the project, as described in the work order.

When the client does not notify Sankuru.biz with new issues, and all existing issues have been fixed, Sankuru.biz will ask the client to accept the delivery. The client implictly accepts the delivery of the improvements by not raising any unresolved or new issues.

After the client has accepted the delivery, Sankuru.biz provides the client with an invoice for the work.

3.5. Embellishments

An embellishment request occurs when the client:

• supplies additional details during the project that increase the implementation effort originally estimated
• requests an equivalent alternative to the alternative implemented by Sankuru.biz already

Sankuru.biz never implements, free of charge, additional specifications, additional details, or equivalent alternatives to the project, disclosed by the client after the start of the project. If the additional information is not mentioned explicitly in the work order, and is only mentioned afterwards by the client, during the project, the additional specifications constitute an embellishment. Sankuru.biz will not extend the ongoing project in order to implement any such embellishments. The client must first approve the delivery of the ongoing project and make the payment agreed, before Sankuru.biz will quote and execute an embellishment project.

If the client does not precisely describe a feature desired, Sankuru.biz will produce a reasonable implementation for the feature. If the client prefers another implementation, or changes to the implementation delivered, these changes constitute embellishments. The client must first approve the delivery of the ongoing project and make the payment agreed, before Sankuru.biz will quote and execute an embellishment project.

Typically, some clients will try to save money by not commissioning graphical specifications and mockups with a graphical designer, that define precisely how the user interfaces should look. After delivery of the project, such client will then improvise, and start making remarks of how he desires that the user interfaces should look, and usually expect Sankuru.biz to produce such embellishments free of charge. Sankuru.biz will NOT produce graphical embellishments free of charge during the project. Sankuru.biz will also NOT produce graphical mockups for the client free of charge. All costs resulting from the fact that the client does not invest in graphical specifications and mockups prior to commissioning the project, are borne by the client.

Sankuru.biz will only accept to quote and execute such embellishments in a follow-up project, after having received payment from the client for the main project. It is probably not possible for any client to entirely specify a project from the start, and entirely avoid the need for future embellishment projects. Therefore, it is absolutely normal for projects to be followed by embellishment projects. The client must, however, be aware that the initial quotation does not cover the cost for producing the embellishments. The client must also be aware that he will most likely need to budget for more than one round of embellishments.

3.6. Deadlines

On request by the client, Sankuru.biz will provide tentative deadlines for the delivery of the improvements to the client's staging server. Given the nature of software engineering, these deadlines are approximations.

If the client would incur substantial damage in the case that Sankuru.biz is unable to deliver before a hard deadline, the client must motivate this particularity explictly BEFORE accepting the quotation.

The client must describe explicitly and estimate the damage that would be incurred in the case Sankuru.biz delivers the improvements on the staging server beyond the hard deadline.

The client must always arrange third-party insurance for such damage, and provide Sankuru.biz with proof that he has sufficient insurance cover.

By the nature of things, Sankuru.biz nor the client are in a position to make precise determinations as to how long the delivery stage of a project will take. Again, the client must cover all damage resulting from the failure to complete the delivery stage before a hard deadline, with third-party insurance, and demonstrate that he has sufficient insurance cover.

4. Liability

Any inconvenience or damage resulting from approving a delivery by Sankuru.biz and deploying it to the live server while it still contains issues, are born by the client. The liability for Sankuru.biz is limited to fixing the issues free of charge as long as they are notified within the warranty period of 3 months.

Sankuru.biz never provides insurance cover or self-insure any inadverted damage resulting from issues that may arise during improvement projects.

5. Payment terms

The payment terms are different for existing clients, clients with generally credible financial standing, and new clients with little information available. The payment terms are also different, depending on the size of the project. Sankuru.biz generally invoices existing clients with a 10-day payment term for projects quoted for less than 10 days of work. For larger projects, Sankuru.biz will split the project in milestones and invoice at every milestone.

New clients must place the payment of the next milestone for the project in escrow with the designated escrow service. Sankuru.biz will only execute the delivery embellishments after the client has placed additional payment in escrow.

6. Rules concerning warranty

The rules concerning warranty, attempt to balance the continuing need of the client for support and assistance, against the economic impossibility for Sankuru.biz to absorb the cost of issues that are caused by external sources.

Note: There is never warranty on work deployed to a Windows server, or to a hosting environment without SSH access.

Concerning support requests, Sankuru.biz will invoice the client the cost to investigate and reproduce an issue, through the existing hourly rate agreement, regardless of whether the client places an order to actually fix the issue, if the investigation reveals that the issue is caused by the underlying software, a misconfiguration by the client, or a customization modification developed by a third party, or is notified after the warranty period of 3 months.

7. Non-disclosure of client-specific information

Sankuru.biz treats client-specific information with discretion and does not publish client-specific information without the client's consent. When the client has  a particular need for extra levels of confidentiality, he must indicate in writing what specific information must be held confidential, until what event, or for what duration of time.